Seriously, I need some "Grant Writing 101" here folks. Never had to do it before, never needed too. I've never produced anything other than Murder Mystery Dinner Theater shows for a living. Now that I'm back into CT I find myself looking for money to shore up overhead costs. I know the format for the grant sumbission, but not a lot else. How do I word it? What should I include? How specific should I be? Are there any "Magic" words that help?

 

Thank you for your help.

 

#1 Follow the rules on the applications.  If they say limit your words to a certain number do it.  If they say no more that 3 supplemental materials, don't send any more than that.  Grant readers are often trying to slash their way through a mountain of applications in a very short amount of time and are often not very forgiving of applications that don't follow the basic rules of the application, no matter how good the project may be.

 

#2 Be brief, but complete.  Try and be as efficient with your wording as possible and get your point across as quickly as possible.  On the other side of that coin, though, don't be so brief that you don't include vital information about the project or organization.  One recent example I encountered was talking about a Shakespeare production and the innovative things the director will do with the show, but in the bio section of the application they didn't include information about the guy who was directing the show.  The information was concise but not complete.

 

#3 Assume nothing.  Give the grant reader as much information as they need in order to understand your project.  This includes things like information about your venue, or company that may be important to the grant.  Again an example from a grant I read recently was talking about an ethnic festival that was going to be held at church and listed the address.  The application didn't mention that the address was in a low income neighborhood and by holding the festival there it was bringing arts to an under served population.  Someone who knew this city may have known that, but don't assume your grant reader knows those sort of things about your community.  A good thing to do is to have someone who doesn't know your project read the application before you submit it and ask them if they understood it or had any questions. 

 

#4 Check your math and spelling.  Make sure that your project budget numbers add up and that you are using the same numbers throughout the grant.  This seems like a no brainer but if the grant application is particularly long it would be easy to fill in numbers in the budget section but accidentally have different numbers in your project narrative.  Also make sure you've done your math right and that you've checked your spelling and grammar.  Again no brainers but you'd be surprised how many grants I've seen (and yes I'll admit on occasion have written) that got submitted with stupid typos or spelling errors.  It just makes your application look unprofessional and knocks you down a notch in the reader's mind.

 

These were just a few kind of specific things to keep in mind when doing a grant application.  Good luck with your application!